Page 18

Chapter seventeen

Aldric

T he feel of Seraphina de la Croix’s skin still chafed his fingertips. The scent of her perfume still burned his nose.

He could have killed her right then and there and been done with it. No political games. No intrigue. Just his fingers about her pretty little throat.

As if sensing the direction of his thoughts, Calix observed while they made for the beach where the Twelve Sons had pitched their tents, “She was prettier than I was expecting. A bit odd, though. I’ve never seen a woman react like that to you. But she was pretty.”

Aldric’s lips twisted. She was pretty. Too pretty.

But, yes, that had been odd.

Never had a woman pursued him—in either a figurative or a literal sense—and demanded he give his name. Desperate . She had been desperate to know who he was. So desperate, she had actually touched him.

He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had touched him without a blade in her hand.

“Are we still going to go through with it?” Calix dared ask.

“What other choice is there?” Aldric spat.

Edmund hadn’t exactly given him an opportunity to refuse the current mission. But the fact that his brother had summoned him to deal with such a non-threat was a grave insult.

His glaive was tempered in the blood of Kunishi warlords and shieldmaidens. For fifteen years, he had held Blackrun. He should hold it still. How many Kunishi might yet slip through the cracks in his absence?

How many more Kunishi might yet flee from the threat of this mysterious… Bonesinger ?

A low snarl escaped his throat as they finally broke from the treeline. In the near distance, a fire crackled in the center of their little camp, and the scent of roasting fish wafted through the air toward him. His stomach rumbled.

But a deep frown etched itself onto his lips when the firm earth beneath his feet shifted to treacherous sand. The uncertain terrain slowed his already stunted stride even more.

He hated sand.

“And when are we going to tell the others, Your Highness? About the plan?”

Aldric sighed through his nose. He missed Beck.

Beck wouldn’t have asked so many questions.

“They’ll know when they need to know.”

He wanted his men to think they were there for the sake of appearances. He wanted them to think they were there to flaunt Drakmori prowess in the tourney on the morrow.

The stench of their uncertainty whenever he approached was bad enough now that he had been reinstated as the Prince of Drakmor. He didn’t want to see what might happen once they learned the true reason they were there.

Leif was the first Son to notice their approach, but the older man’s sharp, warning whistle swiftly alerted the others.

Aldric waved a hand, signaling they should all go back to their business. He had spent long years with these men. He had bled with these men.

He wasn’t going to endure them awkwardly bowing to him now.

Rakon stood by the fire, tending the fish which dripped their juices into the spitting flames. The big man asked, “How’s the competition look?”

His Sons thought he and Calix had been off waiting for the Elmorian ships to land so they could inspect the "warriors" they were to face in the tourney.

In truth, he hadn’t noticed anyone at all beyond the queen herself.

It had been difficult to see anything else, with her standing so close.

Her fingers tangled in his shirt.

Clearing his throat, Aldric moved closer to the oppressive heat of the fire while Calix declared with all of his usual theatrics, “It’ll be easy winnings tomorrow. I didn’t see anyone to be worried about.”

Leif tongued the gap where one of his left molars had once resided. “Of course you wouldn’t, Mother. Not participating tomorrow, are ya?”

Calix scowled. “Neither are you, old man.”

Aldric ignored them both. “Who’s actually competing tomorrow?” he asked instead.

Kyn hooked a thumb toward Eisway, where he sparred with their newest recruit. Some lanky bastard named Tayn. “They want to joust, Father. But I don’t know about the melee.”

Rakon pulled the fish free of the fire. While he portioned out everyone’s meals, he answered, “I’ll be doing the melee tomorrow, boss.”

Aldric nodded. “As will I.” Of course he would. He had no choice.

Edmund had named him Drakmor’s champion for the tourney.

While Rakon passed him a triple portion of fish wrapped in large leaves scavenged from the treeline, Aldric announced, “We’ll have Eisway and Tayn in the joust tomorrow and the rest of us, excusing Kyn, Calix, and Leif, in the melee. Let us show these Elmorians what Drakmor is made of.”

Young Sven shot him a look full of alarm. “You want me in the melee?”

Leif clapped the lad on the shoulder and teased, “Some bruises will do you good, boy.”

But Calix wrinkled his nose. “If they bothered including an archery competition, I would be able to show them what I’m made of.”

With his portions of fish clasped in his left hand, Aldric waved with his right. “I’ll be on the ship,” he rumbled to his still chattering men before setting off into the deepening evening.

It was slow going, picking his way across the sands with his poor depth perception. Calix caught up to him quickly.

“Want me to come with you?” his new second-in-command asked, a hopeful quality to his tone.

Aldric would have preferred Rakon or Leif for the position of second. But neither wanted the responsibility of being the Mother .

Calix had been the next best option. And he wasn’t a bad choice. He was a decent man. The best shot they had now that Leif’s vision was failing.

Aldric only wished he wasn’t so hard on the younger men.

He dashed his new second’s hopes with a curt, “No.” He just wanted to be alone for a time. “Stay with the men,” he instructed. “Keep the young ones from doing anything stupid.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Calix sighed. Soon after, he melded back into the shadows, leaving Aldric alone at last.

Alone save for Soot.

A quiet chirp was the only warning Aldric received before the winged serpent dove out of the darkness and wrapped itself down the length of his left arm. He squinted at the creature and warned, “No fish for you, little beggar. Not until we reach the ship.”

When it came time for him to veer toward the cove where their ship was concealed, though, Aldric found himself suddenly walking in the opposite direction, pulled as if by invisible strings.

Frowning, he dove deeper into the jungle.

The wilds of Nerina Reef were a far more treacherous sort than those he had come to know at Blackrun, filled with tangling vines and ferns as tall as he. More than once, he nearly lost his footing in the deep shadows. But the sounds and scents of the queen’s false village soon led him right to the heart of those painted tents.

It all reeked of excess.

It was easy enough to find the pavilion that surely contained the strange woman he had met on the beach. He but looked for the largest and most ornate one.

Aldric had been raised on tales of King Hamon V of Elmoria—the great de la Croix conqueror. The man who had swept the mainland and claimed victory after victory for his small island nation in the days of the Great Conquest. The man who could have ruled all of Avirel had he not lost his nerve upon the battlefield the moment he lost his heir. Aldric could see no sign of King Hamon V’s legacy among the current gilt and glitter.

All he could see was evidence of what happens to men when they forget what hunger tastes like.

Armed guards surrounded the queen’s pavilion, but Aldric slipped through the heavy underbrush unseen. It was one of the many advantages of being smaller than expected .

So few thought to look for him.

The irony of the moment wasn’t lost on him, though. Once upon a time, when he was still the Crown Prince of Drakmor, Seraphina de la Croix was meant to be his bride. He remembered the negotiations well. His father thought it a good match.

Until he was no longer worthy of it.

And now here they were. She, a queen in her own right. The first woman in all Avirel to sit a throne as a ruling monarch. And he, a nobody skulking in the bushes.

Watching her through painted canvas.

The memory of the queen’s voice ghosted through his mind in that moment. “Who are you?” she had demanded. “Tell me.”

The sight of her eyes crackling like storm clouds was burned into his thoughts. The feel of her fingers brushing his throat haunted him still. Pretty, Calix had called her. But no. The Queen of Elmoria wasn’t pretty.

She was beautiful.

Setting his jaw, Aldric peeled himself away from the woman’s pavilion and set off through the jungle again, making for his own ship. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

Not their history together. Nor the queen’s unparalleled beauty.

She had asked him who he was, and he had merely given her his name. But he should have told her the truth. He should have warned her then.

He was her undoing.